This week, President Obama laid out his blueprint for lowering corporate taxes. The response from Republicans: small businesses will suffer.
Taxes aren’t the only place where small businesses currently get a break, and in the regulatory context, sometimes the special treatment goes too far. Today we submitted suggestions to the Small Business Administration on how to avoid getting overzealous.
SBA is charged with implementing requirements for agencies to look at alternatives to rules that would adversely affect small businesses. Under its watch, small businesses are shielded from the impacts of regulation through exemptions, lower standards, or longer compliance timelines.
But it is not always a good idea to allow small businesses off the regulatory hook. If done incorrectly or haphazardly, the public can end up footing an oversized bill and larger companies can end up paying inefficiently high costs.
If the goal is to maximize benefits to Americans, decisionmakers need to be careful not to go over the top in protecting small businesses. While enhancing small businesses competitiveness may be a good idea, it should not override the environment, public health, or basic economic principles.
Ultimately, implementation of these small business requirements like the Regulatory Flexibility Act, needs refinement to ensure the American public isn’t hurt in the attempt to boost small businesses.